Numerous industrial products such as automobiles and computers are made by combining parts. Such products are engineered in view of various measures such as cost, performance, and ease of assembly or maintenance. With regard to the parts constituting the products, information such as their names, required numbers and the like are often described in a part configuration diagram or table.
Subassemblies may be used to simplify the production of such products. For example, in the case of an automobile engine, not all parts are assembled from scratch on an engine assembly line. Subassemblies such as pistons that have been previously fitted with piston rings, starting motors that have been previously assembled from parts such as brushes, frames, and the like, may be installed on the engine production line. In such cases, part configuration diagrams for the subassemblies may be separate from the part configuration diagram of the final product.
In addition, replacement parts are sold for such products. Some parts of the final product, such as expendables, are treated as single units, whereas other parts are treated as subassemblies because of the difficulty of disassembly and assembly that make finer-level repair prohibitively difficult.
For example, piston rings are commonly installed on pistons and sold as a set. In the case of a starting motor, either a brush by itself or an entire starting motor may be provided, as the expendable brush may be changed without requiring replacement of the entire motor. Thus the brush and the entire motor may have separate part numbers, and separate configuration diagrams may be needed.
As described above, units of a product may be different at the engineering stage, the production stage, and the service stage. Therefore, it is necessary to produce part configuration diagrams and the like to be used at each stage individually. This need hinders efficient product development.
After a product is developed, managing the multitude of part configuration diagrams is a troublesome effort. For example, when a part is changed, the change must be reflected throughout the related set of configuration diagrams and throughout the various stages of engineering, production, and service.
Thus there is a need for an information management system that improves the efficiency with which such configuration diagrams may be generated, changed, and used.